It’s cliche, but January is as good a time as ever to consider changing some behaviors (probably in response to learning from our mistakes).  Let’s dive into how this annual opportunity to manufacture inspiration can help us improve our fantasy trade skills by reviewing why we trade in the first place.

The foundation of trade is mutual gain.  It really is that simple.  Whether we’re discussing economics or fantasy sports, trade is beneficial because it enables each party to get more of what they want at a (perceived) cost lower than what they could produce it for themselves.

If trade is mutually beneficial, it stands to reason you should consider doing it more often.  In the context of your Ottoneu league (where trading is active and sophisticated), if you’re going to make more trades, you’re going to have to make more trade offers.  Some owners are reluctant to make trade offers, so let me encourage you to live a little more dangerously this year because, in addition to improving your roster, making trade offers will provide you with a lot of additional benefits.

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So, what is Ottoneu?

Ottoneu is a smarter, better brand of fantasy baseball.  By design, it’s a fantasy platform engineered for the hardcore baseball fan that doesn’t enjoy the term “off season”.  Ottoneu is the perfect fit for FanGraphs readers looking to join a competitive fantasy baseball league with a lot of cool features, a sabermetric-economy, and a massive community of raving fans.

You can read first-year feedback from Ottoneu players here.  You can also learn a lot more about the game from the FAQ, but here are the top 10 reasons you should consider joining or moving your fantasy baseball league to Ottoneu this year:

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There’s a saying – nobody cares about your fantasy team. Generally speaking, it’s true. When people in the real world find out I’m a fantasy baseball writer, they’ll start telling me about their team. Usually, they play in a hopelessly shallow format. My eyes glaze over. I nod in the right places. I think about the chores I need to finish in the next few days.

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The ottoneu Slack community continues to be a great place to discuss strategy, get feedback, and more. One of the more active channels is Trade Review, where you can talk about ongoing trade discussions and get feedback from the crowd, and on that channel, there tend to be two camps in this off-season window – those who only care about player values and those who care about roster construction.

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My ottoneu rivals are conspiring against me. Not really, it just feels that way because several have reached a conclusion that is not beneficial to me. Luckily, I have some options. And if those don’t work, I have one final spiteful course of action available.

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One of the things I love most about ottoneu is the robust user community on Slack. Contrary to more widely used platforms like Yahoo or CBS, ottoneu is just small enough to bring all of its users together on one forum. This leads to helpful services like leagues wanted, trade reviews, and freely available analysis tools.

If you play ottoneu and would like to join the Slack community, please say so in the comments. I’ve asked one of the admins to come collect anybody who wants to sign up. If you’re not in an ottoneu league but want to join one, the community is a good place to find the right group of players. Now, onto the bounty.

A couple days ago, community member Justin released a Surplus Value Calculator into the wild. The purpose of the tool is to help you determine which players are valuable keepers and which might be overrated. Expected dollar values for every rostered player are compared against their actual price. The tool uses Steamer projections to form the expected values.

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I opened up trade talks with my esteemed colleague Brandon Warne the other day, inquiring on one of his three elite SS in our ottoneu league.

“Any chance you are interested in moving [Manny] Machado, Xander [Bogaerts] or [Carlos] Correa? You can only use two at SS/MI and while you could play Machado at 3B, you have [Miguel] Sanothere.”

His reply was direct – “Probably will just start Sano at util.”

But I still need a SS and he still has a monopoly (those three plus Brad Miller and Starlin Castro), so how do I convince him to part with one of his prize possessions?
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Last Wednesday, I explored the the fantasy market value of expensive stars like Mike Trout and Clayton Kershaw. My colleague Chad Young used a unique methodology to discover that Trout was most valuable to ottoneu owners when he cost $65 or less.

We both project Trout to produce more than $65 of value, but the data implies it’s hard to construct a full roster around him if he costs more. Personally, I think the case for contending with an expensive player depends upon finding bargains elsewhere. You just have to be the right owner for the job.

Today, I’ll cover my continuing efforts to trade at least two of Trout ($62), Kershaw ($64), and Zack Greinke ($36). Obviously, in terms of cost, one of those is not like the others. While, I view all three as possessing comparable overall value, I’ll be focusing on the two $60 guys today.

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ottoneu arbitration came to an end last weekend, with more than 25,000 allocations totaling more than $35,000 handed out to nearly 450 MLB and MiLB players. The results, as always are occasionally interesting, often expected and sometimes surprising.

You probably won’t be surprised, for example, to find out that Carlos Correa received the most arbitration dollars, but you might be surprised that Mike Trout and Joey Votto – neither of whom were particularly cheap in most leagues, were among the 35 leading targets.
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We’ve had our first big offseason trade in the ottoneu league FanGraphs Staff Two. Chad Young and prospect guy Marc Hulet combined for a doozy. In the aftermath of the trade, Chad and I discussed the relative value of his players versus similar guys I had available. While I’ll refer to our ottoneu league, today’s topic has implications for most keeper leagues.

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